Ice disintegrating utensil



June 21, 1949- F. 'w. 'EL ARNEST, JR

ICE DISINTEGRATING UTENSIL Filed March 18, 1948 Fig. 2

/ INVENTOR- FRANK w. EARNEST, JP.

Y @L, 6% Wag,

ATTORNEY Patented June 21, 1949 UNITED STATES,- PATENT OFFICE ICEDISINTEGRATING UTENSIL Frank W. Earnest, In, Wilkes-Barre, Pa.

Application March 18, 1948, Serial No. 15,522

1 Claim. 1

The present invention relates to ice disintegrating utensils and moreparticularly to means for breaking ice cubes into pieces of suitablesize for use in a drinking glass.

The more usual way to crack ice for domestic use is by means of an icepick which reduces large blocks of ice into fragmentary form, butfragments so formed are relatively large and unsuitable for use indrinking glasses. It is also they practice to wrap pieces of ice in acloth and. then pound the cloth with a hammer, but this does not resultin the production of pieces of substantially uniform size, but to thecontrary, gives a large percentage of waste almost powdery in form.Again, mechanical breakers reduce chunks of ice to the size of shavings,plus a large amount of watery waste.

Some of the objects of the present invention are: to provide an improvedutensil for disintegrating ice cubes into usable pieces; to provide anice disintegrating utensil operating while vibrating to cause an icecube to fracture into a plurality of pieces of substantially the samesize for insertion in a drinking glass; to provide an ice disintegratingutensil in the use of which waste of ice is reduced to a minimum; toprovide an ice disintegrating utensil having a rigid portion carried bya flexible portion, this latter being held in the hand of the user toproduce a vibratory movement which is transmitted through the rigidportion to an ice cube to cause the latter to fracture into smallerusable pieces; and to provide other improvements as will hereinafterappear.

In the accompanying drawing, Fig. 1 represents a perspective of an icedisintegrating utensil embodying one form of the present invention; Fig.2 represents a side elevation of the utensil shown as transmitting avibration to an ice cube; Fig. 3 represents a side elevation of amodified form of the utensil of the invention; and Fig. 4 represents aplan of the modified form of Fig. 3.

Referring to the drawings, one form of the present invention is shown inFig. 1 wherein the utensil is in part formed by a spoon having the usualbowl I and integral handle I I, and is completed by a flexible hand grip[2 attached to the free end of the handle II. This grip may be of rubberor any other spring material capable of causing the spoon bowl I!) tovibrate vertically 2 any suitable surface, though preferably it will beheld in the other hand of the user.

When the utensil bowl is thus positioned over, but not in contact withthe ice cube, the hand grip I2 is oscillated vertically, as indicated indotted lines, so that the bowl Hi impacts the ice cube with a successionof relatively light blows. Such blows appear to set up some form ofmaterial fatigue in the ice cube which causes the latter to disintegratealong substantially symmetrical lines to thereby produce a plurality ofshaped ice bodies of approximately the same size, and an absence ofsmall chips or particles of a shaved nature.

In the modified form of the invention shown in Figs. 3 and 4, a handleId of flat spring steel is provided, terminating at one end with animpact head l5 of sufficient solidity to impart an effective blow to arelatively massive spheroidal ice cube, while at the other end there isa hand grip l6. It should be noted that-the impact head forms an impactpoint focus area in alined relation medially with the handle I4. Inoperation, the hand of the user grasped the grip l6 and holding theutensil in the position shown in Fig. 3 starts the handle l4 vibratingfiatwise and brings the head I5 in such close proximity to the surfaceof a supported ice cube as to impose a succession of blows at relativelyshort intervals whereby internal stresses are developed in the ice cubewhich immediately bring about the desired disintegration into usablepieces of a size to efficiently distribute themselves in a drinkingglass to cool liquid contents therein.

It will now be apparent that a complete unitary ice disintegratingutensil has been devised which functions in a novel manner to reduce icesolids to suitable fragmentary shapes and sizes for cooling liquids inglasses or other containers. While reference has been specifically madeto ice cubes it is to be understood that the utensil can efficientlyfunction to break up irregularly shaped pieces of ice. It is importantalso to note that the frequency of the vibrations should be such as tofunction in relatively quick succession, because a cleavage once startedmust be caused to continue along the same planes for most satisfactoryresults. A slow frequency of vibration allows the film of moisturebetween cleavage planes to freeze and cement the surfaces together againbefore the delayed impact can cause the required disintegration.

Having thus described my invention, I claim:

A hand tool for disintegrating ice cubes into relatively smallfragments, comprising a rigid hand grip to be held by the user, arelatively massive spheroidal impact member forming an impact pointfocus area, and an elongated handle forming a rigid connection with saidgrip and with said impact member, and medially alined with said focuspoint area, said handle being formed of flat spring metal to vibrateflatwise rapidly in response to oscillation imparted to said handle bythe user, whereby a succession of closely spaced taps are produced on anice cube to cause disintegration thereof.

FRANK W. EARNEST, J R.

REFERENCES CITED The following references are of record in the file ofthis patent:

UNITED STATES PATENTS Number Number Name Date George Oct. 2, 1888Sherman May 6, 1890 Smith Feb. 7, 1905 Jennings Oct. 8, 1935 Quea Nov.16, 1937 FOREIGN PATENTS Country Date Great Britain May 15, 1888 GermanyNov. 17, 1923

